A Fox News guest on Wednesday said that Congress should repeal the federal minimum wage because it was serving as the “Black Teenage Unemployment Act.”

“The minimum wage makes no sense whatsoever to me,” former Reagan economist Art Laffer told Fox News host Jenna Lee. “Honestly it’s just the teenage — Black Teenage Unemployment Act. And this is the very group that we need to have jobs, not be put out of work because of a minimum wage. So, I’m very much in favor of, at least for teenagers, getting rid of the minimum wage.”

American Enterprise Institute Resident Scholar Michael Strain added that that the minimum wage should also be lowered to $4 an hour for the long-term unemployed because companies did not want to take a “$7.25 an hour risk on that worker.”

Laffer predicted that the country was a lot closer to solving its labor issues because it had seen “the failed policies of the last six, seven years.”

“What we should do is just a low-rate flat tax, spending restraints, sound money, free trade and minimal regulations and get the government the heck out of the way,” he said. “And let the private market solve the problem.”

About the Author

David Edwards has served as an editor at Raw Story since 2006. His work can also be found at Crooks & Liars, and he's also been published at The BRAD BLOG. He came to Raw Story after working as a network manager for the state of North Carolina and as as engineer developing enterprise resource planning software. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidEdwards.